Chapter 2
Abby
They were going to have to sell, that much was obvious. But before that conclusion was reached, she was required to present her findings to the board. And that, Abby thought, was something she wasn’t looking forward to.
Being the daughter of the boss should have come with advantages, but most days Abby saw nothing but disadvantages. Like today, for example.
Others on the team had wanted to lead this project, including Jack the UK manager, but Abby had been chosen, which felt both exhilarating and awkward.
It was fair to assume her presentation would be given against a background of silent but ill-disguised resentment.
She was used to it, but being unpopular didn’t get easier with time, nor did the stress of knowing they were waiting for her to fail. Not just waiting for it. Hoping.
They never took her seriously. They saw her as her mother’s daughter and nothing else.
I can do this, she told herself silently. I may be the daughter of the boss, but that doesn’t mean I’m not good at my job. I don’t need their validation.
She’d done the work she needed to do, then she’d checked it and checked it again because she couldn’t allow herself to make a mistake.
She’d spent so long staring at spreadsheets her vision had started to blur and she’d gone to bed still seeing squares and numbers.
She’d looked at it from all angles, making sure she’d missed nothing.
She’d anticipated every question she could be asked.
She couldn’t see how it could go wrong, although anything was possible.
Looking at her colleagues, gathered around the water cooler like a pride of lions waiting for the kill, Abby was reminded of a lecture she’d attended in college on how to handle difficult people.
The way not to be intimidated, she’d been told, was to imagine yourself as the predator, not the prey.
The problem was that lions didn’t have many predators.
The biggest threat to their existence was probably a human.
She empathised.
She stood up straighter, ignored the knot of tension in her stomach and pushed through the doors to join them.
When it came to hiding her feelings, she’d had the best teacher.
Her mother was skilled at hiding her emotions to the point that Abby sometimes wondered whether she experienced them in the same way other people did.
She never seemed to be hurt or offended.
She didn’t get angry, and Abby had never seen her cry. Appearances suggested she felt nothing.
Abby, on the other hand, felt everything but disguised it.
She’d learned the hard way that any display of doubt or suggestion of vulnerability on her part simply fed into her colleagues’ belief that she didn’t deserve to be here.
She’d long since accepted that the only way to win their trust was to earn it and she was going to keep trying to do that however long it took, and however hard she had to work.
She was hoping today would be that day, although it didn’t seem to be starting well.
You have as much right to be here as anyone, she reminded herself. You have earned your place in this room.
Conversation stopped as she walked towards them, but that wasn’t unusual.
Everyone was guarded around her because they didn’t trust her not to pass on what was said to her mother.
Which showed how little they knew about the boss.
Alexandra Strong was interested in facts and numbers.
Profit and loss. She considered gossip to be as much a waste of her time as watching TV.
Still, people kept a wary distance from Abby, and it had been that way since she’d started working for the company right out of college.
It didn’t matter that she’d started at the bottom and rotated through all the different hotel departments, gaining experience in the day-to-day operations.
No matter what she did or how much experience she gained or what she achieved, her presence was tolerated rather than welcomed, her ideas listened to politely rather than embraced.
It was exhausting.
“Hi everyone, good weekend?” She behaved as if she was one of them, as if she was going to be welcomed into their space even though she could feel the barrier between them. Did people have limits? She was starting to think she might be reaching hers.
“The weekend was fine, thanks. Yours?” Katya, VP of sales, filled her cup with water. Her tone was civil. She was far too experienced and professional to ever cross the line. But she wasn’t friendly.
Abby ignored that reality and behaved as if she was friendly.
“My weekend was busy,” she said brightly. “I spent most of it preparing for today’s meeting.” Why had she said that? She sounded needy.
Tim, head of guest relations for the group, headed for the door. “I need to pick up some documents before the meeting. See you all in a minute.”
A couple of other people followed him and Abby watched them go, a hollow feeling inside her.
She worked hard. Most of the time it felt that was all she did. And for what? Eventually, if she proved herself, she’d take over the company. Her mother had been telling her that since she was old enough to have the conversation.
But was this the price she was going to have to pay? What if she didn’t want to pay that price?
The rebellious thought crept into her brain from nowhere and shocked her. Of course she wanted that. Why was she even doubting herself?
She remembered sitting at her mother’s desk aged seven, watching as her mother dealt with problem after problem. By ten, her mother was asking her opinion on things and discussing her answers. Sometimes it felt as if the company was the only thing they talked about.
One day this will be yours. It’s never too soon to learn.
It was just the two of them. It had always been the two of them because Abby’s father had died before she was born.
There was no extended family. No network of loving grandparents or fun cousins.
Just her and her mother, and the successful hotel group she’d built from the one hotel Abby’s father had left her.
On a few occasions she’d tried to ask her mother about her childhood, but her mother always shut her down and Abby had to respect that choice, but it left her with frustratingly little knowledge of her past. She sometimes felt as if the two of them existed in a bubble.
Katya glanced at the time. “I need to get to the meeting room and set up. We both know the boss doesn’t tolerate lateness.”
Abby almost apologised for it, even though she could hardly be blamed for the boss’s obsession with precise time-keeping.
One by one they melted away until she was left standing alone.
“Great to see you, Abby,” she muttered under her breath as she tucked the files under her arm and filled a cup with water.
“You worked all weekend on the report? You must be exhausted. The company is lucky to have you. Can’t wait to hear your recommendations.
Your analysis is always insightful and your solutions inspired. ”
In her dreams.
Since when had any of them taken her seriously? Never. Since when had any of them thought she might have something to say that was worth listening to? Also, never. Or maybe it was more that they were jealous of her perceived privileges.
Whatever the cause, it made for a hideously lonely existence at work.
But it was fine. She was used to it.
She paused. In fact, it wasn’t fine at all, and she would never get used to it, but she’d learned to live with it.
Fortunately for her she loved the work itself.
She enjoyed the varied challenges she faced, and the creativity involved in finding solutions.
She had a natural talent for spotting how improvements could be made, how guest service could be improved and profits increased.
It was a busy, stimulating job and in the end that was what mattered.
She could survive without having friends at work.
But she would have liked their respect. Whatever she did, they resented her.
They thought she was given preferential treatment, and that there were others more deserving of the opportunities that came her way.
What they didn’t understand was that she’d been shadowing her mother since she was old enough to walk.
Balancing her laptop and the water, she headed to the meeting room where everyone was already gathered.
Abby distributed the reports she’d had printed, settled herself at the table and waited.
Beyond the huge glass windows of the corporate office the sun blazed, light shimmering across Boston Bay. On the streets far below people were out enjoying the glorious summer weather, taking long lunches in outdoor cafés, strolling along the cobbled streets, or heading out onto the water.
She felt a pang of envy. They probably didn’t have indigestion from stress, or a headache from working into the night and then being unable to sleep.
She reminded herself that she was doing something she loved.
This was what she’d been working towards since she’d graduated college and even before that.
I built this for you, her mother would say as she took ten-year-old Abby through her plans for developing a hotel on the beautiful Oregon coast. For us. No one can take it away.
Abby had felt a responsibility to take seriously what she’d been given.
To that end she’d let friendships lapse, she hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in as long as she could remember and her last relationship—and it was stretching credulity to describe it as that—had been over a year ago.
But she wouldn’t change a thing. Would she?
She jumped as the door opened and the boss strode in.
It was precisely two o’clock.
Abby felt tension grip her muscles. It was true that she occasionally felt intimidated by her colleagues, but it was also true that the person who intimidated her most was her own mother.